


Distant

by Melphis_Amekia



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5246549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melphis_Amekia/pseuds/Melphis_Amekia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max and Warren go to the GO!Ape marathon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distant

**Author's Note:**

> I changed the date of the marathon for obvious reasons. There’s a lot of retelling of the in-game events for also obvious reasons which you’ll get after you read this. Also, while it is cool that Warren believes Max the moment she says about her powers in ep 5, I don’t think he’d believe her so easily when he isn’t living through the apocalypse. It wouldn’t take him much with some proof(I think Max’s journal survived with everything in it, it makes sense to me). And, for those that never played Dragon Age or Mass Effect so you get the references: *Flemeth - mysterious, old, powerful woman from Dragon Age series. **Conrad Verner - an NPC from Mass Effect who is revealed in the last game of the trilogy to be a) ridiculously smart and b) has an altar for Shepard(the player character) because of his obssesion with her/him. (And now, finally:)
> 
> Tumblr - http://corwinusjensen.tumblr.com/post/133556992460/happy-birthday-warren
> 
> **this was supposed to be chapter 1 out of 3 chapters and you'd all find out why this was called Distant instead of something happy, but I didn't know where to go with what I had so I left this as it is.

“I am surprised you want to go with me to the drive-in, especially so soon after the funeral.” I said as we were walking to my car. It was uncomfortable even asking Max that, since the Go!Ape marathon was only five days after her best friend’s funeral, but I reasoned it was better for her to be with a friend than cooped up in her room, alone. Still, I barely managed to invite her without tripping over my tongue.

“Warren, I’ve actually been looking forward to it. After everything that’s happened this week…” Max replied. I was looking at Max, and she was still the same Max, short brown hair, light blue eyes, a sea of freckles. But I could tell this was not exactly the Max I knew, and I wasn’t the only one to notice it.

“That’s… great! The old-school Ape films are such classics, even though the new one is pretty good too.”

“I’ve watched the new one back in Seattle with my parents. It was pretty damn cool.” I was just about to unlock my car when Max stopped me. “Would you let me drive? I know you want to show off your drive, but I swear it’s important. If I don’t tell you this, or anyone, I’ll feel I’m going crazy.” She said this all with so much energy I never knew she had in a voice so weary and pained she was almost like I pictured Flemeth* - proud, strong, enduring in a long life. I blinked, checking if Max’s hair didn’t suddenly transform into snow-white. “You might be the only one to believe me, but I almost didn’t want to tell you anything because… Well, you’ll see.”

“Max, you know you can tell me anything.” I gave her my car keys.

“Thanks. I promise I will.” She hugged me tight, but let go before I could register what happened.

Inside the car, Max took out a black notebook, plastered and filled with protruding notes and photos, from her bag. I recognized it - it was her journal, and it seemed much fuller than I guessed it would be. Max sighed before looking at me skeptically.

“For reals, Warren, this is only between me and you, not social media.”

“Don’t insult me. Max, Go on.” I didn’t get what made her smile before she said:

“This was my journal from the past week. Only, the week in it is nothing like this week.”

“In what way?” I asked, a ton of questions and scenarios running through my mind.

“I’ll let the journal tell most of the story - it’s why I asked to drive - and I’ll tell just the start. The actual start of the story, and not what I told everyone else happened.

The morning I saw Chloe get shot… It was not the only time I saw her get shot. Actually, I think I saw her die or almost die more times than I can count.” She laughed. Listening to it felt like, if sugar could turn bitter, that was its equivalent in Max’s voice.

I said nothing, enraptured, waiting for her to continue.

“I need to back up a tiny bit. I woke up in Jefferson’s class” Max said, saying his name like it was hydrocloric acid, “though I don’t remember sleeping during it. I thought I had some kind of a weird dream where a tornado destroyed Arcadia Bay. After the class, I had to go to the bathroom to calm a bit, gather the nerve to give my photo for the Everyday Heroes contest. But, I couldn’t, and I shredded it. That’s when a blue butterfly came in for the perfect photo op.

Then, Nathan Prescott came in, and Chloe behind him. I didn’t know who she was at the time, honestly. I’ll skip most of this, since you already know it. When he shot Chloe I held out my hand…

And rewinded time until I ‘woke up’ at Jefferson’s lesson again.”

If I had been looking anywhere else except at Max, I think I would have turned my head so fast I’d fear I’d have hurt something in my neck.

“What? How?” It was impossible. Someone with a power to distort time that way would make a ripple effect throughout both time and space and cause all the catastrophes in the book one after the other. And humans had no superpowers at all(however much I wanted them to have, or myself to have, actually), and besides, her friend Chloe was dead. I attended her funeral with everyone else, after all.

“I can already guess what you’re thinking. It’s exactly what I would imagine if I was in your shoes, my pop cultural pirate connoisseur. Just,” Max said, her voice turning from joking to sad, “read my journal. It’ll tell everything.”

“Okay, time girl.” I said. She looked at me with hurt in her eyes, hurt because it was so stupidly obvious how difficult saying what she already said was for her. I wished I hadn’t teased her, but I couldn’t… rewind time.

Max checked her phone. “We should be going. We’ll never get to Newberg on time otherwise.” I nodded.

We were on the 101 in a couple of minutes. I turned on the radio to an indie-music station which began playing Mt. Washington. She had no interest in explaining what she said, her eyes on the road ahead, ignoring me. I hoped her journal would tell me what she couldn’t or wouldn’t. I started reading it, not knowing what I wanted more - for it to prove Max’s claims, or not. The first couple of entries were from before last Monday, written every so often. There was nothing weird about them, but I liked them a lot. They defined Max… or they used to.

At least, it was nice that she mentioned me a couple of times.

Then I saw ‘October 7th’ on the page. Max had already told me the first part, but I didn’t skip it. I wasn’t prepared for what followed, though. Max used her rewind to spray water and paint on Victoria Chase and her groupee, then comforted her which was the right thing to do, though I don’t know if I would have done that. She had to rewind because she didn’t know Juliet’s last name, then solved another teen crisis cause by Victoria. She was just about to tell me about her powers when Nathan showed up, I defended her and got a black eye, but managed to distract him so Max could escape with Chloe, who was definitely not dead. Max stood up to David Madsen in his own house to help Chloe.

I was hooked better than teenage girls in line for another Twilight movie. She wrote like every other teenage girl(I think), but it was both interesting and exciting to read it. The pages flipped without me noticing them. Between everything else, I was also a part of the story - it seems I had already asked her to the movies and she said yes, even if her words felt friendzony, getting her help for an experiment(Which I should have known in any timeline. Dammit brain!), and helped her make a bomb so she could break into the principals office. Hell yeah!

Before I got to ‘October 11th’, I stopped reading only twice. When Max had to save Kate… and when Chloe asked Max to ki… euthanize her in an ‘alternate’ timeline was so overwhelming, so scary to think of, I let the journal rest for awhile and watched the road, trying to feel blank, to not feel how real it all sounded for all the crazy stuff that was in it. Max gave me a curious look the second time, but said nothing.

Since I was morally obliged to finish reading it before we arrive in Newberg, I resumed reading. Max chose to do it, in the journal. She had managed to do it. I almost put the journal back down again, but I had to deal with that while reading on. Fortunately, the next part wasn’t so draining. All that private detective work, Max would have been perfect for an Enid Blyton book. And she stopped me before I could beat the shit out of Nathan, which sounds as incredible as it would be scary if it happened.

Then they find the ‘Dark Room’ and Rachel’s body. I tried to picture Max and Chloe at the Junkyard, crying over the missing girl’s dead body, but I couldn’t focus on it well enough and place the details properly. This chapter(I guess?) ended on a half filled page, right after Max warned Victoria. On the next one, there was a prologue of sorts:

Somehow, this version of the journal transported itself with me back. I have to fill the missing parts of it out with my story and hope the images will become less vivid with each more word I write about them.

Max’s writing became less neat after that. It was difficult to keep myself from facepalming when they went back to the junkyard. It was the worst amateur mistake that someone could make, one that killed Chloe(again). I had completely forgotten about Jefferson, so when he showed up I stared at the page for a good couple of minutes, unbelieving.

It was not the worst thing Max put me through by making me read her journal, not by a longshot. I stayed perfectly calm through the torture scenes, because if I hadn’t, I’d not stop imagining GOING APE on him so much worse than what I could have done to Nathan. It was so hard to concentrate on being calm that I almost didn’t realize - I am starting to believe her.

I couldn’t dwell on it, so I continued on. It went from things turning out great in San Francisco to going back to the Dark Room to being saved by David and going to Two Whales for a photo of us and saving people and Max kissing me for luck, holy shit(and saying that she cared about me), and returning to save Chloe again to a nightmare of such magnitude, Jefferson’s torture was a breeze to the one her own mind(or the world or some other force) created. I felt physically ill for the things in there about me. I had feelings for Max but I never thought possible I could be similar to Conrad Verner, or even worse, an extra creepy Conrad Verner**. I wanted to burn the locker photo the moment I saw it.

And she realized what caused the tornado and what she had to choose. I could sum the choices in one word - sadistic.

I closed the journal. I was surprised to see a city moving around me. Time must have passed the same way Flash ran, which was way too frickin’ fast.

“If you don’t believe what I’ve written, look at the photos I have in there. That’s not a thing I could have faked - I am into instant images, not expensive digital ones extra edited.” Max said, somehow guessing I read the journal.

“Yeah, I know.” I replied, remembering them well, especially the apocalyptic Arcadia Bay. “Could you pull over somewhere? It’ll be easier to talk.”

Max said nothing even when she found a place to park. She just stared at me and waited for me to speak. It was infinitely worse than her barrage of questions she usually served, and it was about as helpful as water noodles in a storm.

“Max, I uh, don’t know exactly what to say. I guess I’ll try my best and not complicate.

If I had lived through all this you’ve written, I’d have accepted it, no questions asked. Now, my mind wants proof because it cannot see it really happening.” Max’s expression became more and more rigid and pale and hurt with every word I said, her blue eyes downcast. I did the bravest thing I thought of doing, emboldened by the journal - I touched her cheek, hoping she wouldn’t recoil, hoping she’d look at me. Her eyes shot up and met mine, but she stayed still, surprised.

“But Max, I believe you. It fits. All of it fits.”

Max straight up smiled before almost crushing me by hugging, which wouldn’t have been bad in any timeline or reality. She cried, but it was the good kind, the finally-someone-believes-me kind a good movie should have. We sat like that for so long, weirdly comfortable, it was full dark when Max broke it off.

“I’m afraid we missed the start of the movies.” Max said, wiping the last of the tears off her face.

“To be honest, I’d rather do something else right now. I’ll make sure to plunder the interwebz for them when we get back. We’ll have to improvise on big screens, though.”

“I think we’ll manage.” she replied as she got out of the car. “Let’s find some place interesting. Or at least one with coffee.”

“I know a good place where, if we’re lucky, we might turn up at the start of a D&D campaign, and there’s a coffee shop nearby. We can go there, if you want?”

“That sounds nice.” Max took my hand, but said nothing else. I almost jumped from the welcome surprise, but restrained myself so I didn’t look like an idiot.

Silence enveloped us like the thick fog we passed through, unoppressive in its lightness. I liked walking through Newberg, or Mini-Seattle as I called it every time I got here, which was rarely. The bright neon multicolored lights on almost every building, combined with the harsh light of streetlamps and the fog, gave a border town cyberpunk feel. I could easily imagine a hero, a white knight in black robes starting his vigilante campaign here before moving on with his sidekick, a bright eyed detective who worked on the inside to provide him general information on suspects, and of course her specialty, which was providing her own, high-res photos of the criminals.

Weird. The sidekick always got the spotlight when I imagined it.

We got to the place kinda fast, even with the short detour to a local coffee shop for a large cappuccino for Max and a medium hot chocolate for me. As far as getting into a D&D campaign, Max and I were lucky because they had a couple of spots open. I was less lucky with the way I rolled my character, Arendil, a human paladin with a history in the church who was kind of frustratingly bad because with a couple of ability points or skills more at the start he’d have been the strongest character in the party. Max rolled a much stronger cleric, one Melisandre who came from a distant, dying land, where magic and nature and religion fought for power and shaped her, whose stats and skills were perfectly suited for her. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at how gritty Max’s character was, but it still didn’t look right compared to her usual light side support/heal spellcasters she RP-d.

The campaign was a short one, which was obvious considering it was for a one all-nighter, and it ended up being partially successful because we managed to slay the high dragon defended by a dragon worshipping cult but couldn’t defeat the monster army invading the land in time. Me and Max were the least experienced people in the group, but I did my part well enough with the rolls I got, while she was the most effective support cleric, particularly because of the darker skills her character commanded so she could escape trouble. Max saved my Arendil from a couple of tight spots. Each time she did, she’d say in a serious tone: “Why didn’t you Bubble Hearth, my white Paladin?”, and I’d laugh every time. I accepted she’d joke about it every opportunity she got because of the one time, ONE TIME I did that. It was still annoying.

We ended up sitting side by side in the sand at the river beach as light started to break through the night. If there was wind, the cold would have been biting and I’d suggest going back to my car fast, but it felt like an unintrusive constant and we were exhausted anyway.

“Max,” I said, looking into her light blue eyes of the pre-morning sky, “I don’t know what you’re going to do or how you are going to deal with everything. I just want you to know that I am here for you and that I’ll do whatever I can do to help.”

“I know, Warren.” Max said, our eyes locked, the distance between our faces measured in paper sheets, and I thought that this was the moment and I dreaded it and wanted it and I somehow moved closer and Max did too and we were kissing, holy shit Max was kissing me. Her lips were as soft as the kiss, and I wished we could stay like that for more time than we had here.


End file.
